{"id":47367,"date":"2014-01-13T08:30:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T13:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=47367"},"modified":"2014-01-12T23:52:12","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T04:52:12","slug":"lorinc-torontos-business-community-vs-rob-ford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/01\/13\/lorinc-torontos-business-community-vs-rob-ford\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Toronto’s business community vs. Rob Ford?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"feature-lorinc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For much of the past two years, University of Toronto urban geographer Richard Florida has repeatedly asked a probing question about the political architecture of Rob Ford\u2019s mayoralty: Why did the city\u2019s business community remain so quiet?<\/p>\n

A trenchant observation, but there are signs that corporate Toronto\u2019s infuriating reticence to speak out about Ford\u2019s agenda is abating. Last week, the Toronto Region Board of Trade, which called for Ford to take a leave of absence in November, came out of the gate with an advocacy campaign that seeks to frame the issues but leaves little doubt as to the group\u2019s views on the mayor\u2019s re-election bid.<\/p>\n

Last year, states TRBOT in its campaign<\/a>, \u201cour collective frustrations with political leadership boiled over. We became embroiled in dramatics and personalities.\u201d Hmm, whom could they be referring to?<\/p>\n

With both municipal and provincial elections looming, the Board says the city and the region must focus on building regional transportation, promoting job creation, reducing income disparity, and \u201cincreasing fiscal capacity to upgrade civic infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

TRBOT CEO Carol Wilding doesn\u2019t mince words about her group\u2019s views on the $1 billion Scarborough subway flip-flop: \u201cWhere,\u201d she asks, \u201cwas the rigorous analysis?\u201d What\u2019s more, the campaign\u2019s name \u2013 \u201cthink twice\u2026\u201d \u2013 is clearly a plea to her members to exercise at least a modicum of common sense when considering whether Ford deserves another chance to run roughshod over local government.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to note, however, that TRBOT isn\u2019t talking this time about council\u2019s operating budget and the so-called \u201cstructural deficit,\u201d which formed the centerpiece of the group\u2019s advocacy efforts in the 2010 race<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The structural deficit \u2014 meaning the widening gap between revenues and non-discretionary expenditures \u2014 is no longer a concern, says Wilding, who credits Ford with slaying that particular bogeyman. \u201cI would say the current mayor did make that his primary objective. The structural deficit has been dealt with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Has it? The mayor would say both yes and no, depending on the atmospheric pressure, the win-loss record of the Miami Dolphins and other relevant data points. Bent the arc of spending the first time since the pharaohs, still lots more gravy to hoover up (\u201ceasy!\u201d), and all that. Critics have dismissed Ford\u2019s math as misleading<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Setting aside all the inside-baseball parsing of what Ford has and has not achieved, there\u2019s little doubt that the mayor created \u2014 and continues to create \u2014 the small-p political conditions for extreme spending constraint, as well as widespread public aversion to almost anything that smacks of a tax hike (save and except that little matter of the three decades worth of increases for the Scarborough subway).<\/p>\n

Ford, in effect, has successfully imposed a reverse onus on anyone who dares to suggest the City (or the region) needs to increase taxes or establish other revenue streams to achieve important city-building goals, ranging from transit infrastructure to long-term investments in water\/waste-water systems.<\/p>\n

It is not and has never been about policy. He is a useful idiot, which is why corporate Toronto tacitly backed him and declined to call him out on his recklessness (political, not personal) until the \u201cdramatics\u201d proved to be too, well, dramatic. It also explains why there are still a lot of voters who will likely be prepared to support him, in spite of the drug adventures, the involvement with all sorts of dodgy characters and the drinking and driving.<\/p>\n

The narrative line \u2014 that the City is existentially guilty of over-spending, and anyone who proposes tax increases or other additional revenue sources must effectively prove the unproveable \u2014 remains well and firmly in place.<\/p>\n

Now, consider the fourth bullet in the TRBOT\u2019s campaign \u2013 increasing \u201cfiscal capacity\u201d to deal with civic infrastructure requirements. Such anodyne words, but the proposition goes right to the heart of this question of whether the City deserves more funding to do the things it needs to do (on our behalf, needless to add).<\/p>\n

Wilding acknowledges that our debates about increasing taxes or creating new revenue tools are doused in emotionalism. She argues that voters, including business types, need to step back from the ledge and \u201cput hard facts on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like: do residential property taxes in the City of Toronto need to be more on par with those in the 905 in order to meet the city\u2019s long-term financial obligations? Or should Toronto council avail itself of the powers provided under the City of Toronto Act and establish other tax streams to help underwrite the cost of repairing aging infrastructure or fortifying the city against extreme weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t necessarily about what people want, but [rather] what people need.\u201d The next mayor, Wilding adds, \u201cis somebody who can stand out there and honestly have that discussion with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is that Ford, for many voters, remains the bellwether of fiscal conservatism, and anyone who dares to suggest the City\u2019s problem is a chronic lack of financial capacity risks accusations of profligacy, current or future.<\/p>\n

To its credit, TRBOT is attempting to carve out some political space for the more moderate conservative challengers — David Soknacki, so far, and presumably Karen Stintz and whomever else jumps in on the centre-right \u2013 to advance political and\/or policy arguments on the revenue side of the ledger.<\/p>\n

Whether the organization\u2019s support is sufficient remains to be seen: after all, the anti-Ford challengers, for many voters, are simply guilty until proven innocent.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rhetoric Watch<\/h2>\n

Earlier in the fall, Mayor Ford touted the decline in the city\u2019s unemployment rate \u2013 from \u201caround 11%\u201d (actually 9.4%, as The Star noted<\/a>) in 2010 to 7.7% in August, 2013 \u2013 as evidence of his pledge to get Torontonians back to work. \u201cAnother promise made, another promise kept,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n

So how to interpret Statistics Canada\u2019s last jobs numbers, which came out on Friday? According to the CBC<\/a>, Toronto\u2019s unemployment rate for December nosed up from 8.2% to 8.4% as part of a grim national labour report that saw 45,000 jobs eliminated for the month \u2014 a figure far higher than economists had predicted. Hamilton\u2019s unemployment rate, it turns out, is almost two points lower than ours.<\/p>\n

photo by Sean Marshall<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For much of the past two years, University of Toronto urban geographer Richard Florida has repeatedly asked a probing question about the political architecture of Rob Ford\u2019s mayoralty: Why did the city\u2019s business community remain so quiet? 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